The CBFC chief Pahlaj Nihalani has gone full throttle against the IIFA Awards and called it an 'International farce' by questioning from where does the money come to organise such an extravaganza every year. He also called out its hypocrisy and said its nothing but a "Paid leave" to the celebrities.

"Look at the hypocrisy. They haven't even nominated Aamir Khan for Dangal and Akshay Kumar for Airlift and Rustom just because they wouldn't attend their weekend holiday plans masquerading as an awards function."

He further commented, "Initially we had cinema from various states getting token representation at the awards.Now we only have Bollywood. So why do they call themselves the International Indian films awards? It's such a sham! Bollywood is not Indian cinema."

He summed it up by questioning its financial resources by saying, "What I want to know is, who is paying for this extravagance?"